MTN 138:19-21 First Report of Nesting of the Black Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas) on the North Pacific Coast of Colombia

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First Report of Nesting of the Black Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas) on the North Pacific Coast of Colombia

Karla G. Barrientos-Muñoz¹, Cristian Ramírez-Gallego¹ & Luis Rivas²
¹Colombian Sea Turtle Project, Colombia & University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, USA (E-mail: biokeroz@gmail.com, ramirezgallego.cristian@gmail.com);
²Community Researcher, Colombia

The black turtle (also known as the Pacific green turtle), Chelonia mydas (Linnaeus 1758), is distributed exclusively in the eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO), from southern California (USA) to Valparaíso (Chile) (Pritchard & Mortimer 2000; Seminoff 2004; Troncoso & Urbina 2007). The main known nesting sites are Colola and Maruata Beaches (Michoacán, Mexico), Naranjo Beach (Guanacaste, Costa Rica) and Galapagos Islands (Ecuador: Alvarado & Figueroa 1991; Cornelius 1986; Chaloupka et al. 2004; Márquez 1990; Zárate et al. 2003). The southern extents for black turtle nesting are Piqueros Beach (Machalilla National Park, Ecuador), Los Pinos and Tres Cruces Beaches (Tumbes and Piura, Peru: Baquero et al. 2008; Forsberg et al. 2012; Wester et al. 2011) (Fig. 1). In Colombia, Gorgona Island has one of the most important feeding areas for the species. Nesting activity has been reported as sporadic, and restricted to the southern coast in Valle del Cauca and Nariño (Amorocho et al. 2001; Ceballos et al. 2003). Until now, nesting has never been reported in Chocó in northern Colombia. This is the first report of a black turtle nesting in the north, near the Panama border.

Figure 1. Nesting distribution for black sea turtles in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Chelonia mydas has shown decreasing trends in its population on a global scale, and is therefore classified as Endangered (EN) by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (Seminoff 2004). It is also listed in the Red Book of Reptiles of Colombia (Castaño-Mora 2002) and included in Appendix I of CITES. The causes of decline include overfishing, egg poaching, and incidental capture in commercial and artisanal fisheries (Kelez et al. 2008). There is evidence of the latter occurring in Colombia (Duque-Goodman 1988; Groombridge & Luxmoore 1989; Rueda 1992; Amorocho et al. 2001).

Figure 2. Location of the nesting beach in El Valle including Utria National Natural Park, Choco, Colombia.

El Valle Beach is located along the North Pacific coast at the municipality of Bahía Solano, Chocó where a portion of its beach is part of Utría National Natural Park (Fig. 2). It’s considered the most important nesting beach for Lepidochelys olivacea in Colombia, and has regional importance in South America (Barrientos & Ramirez 2008; Hinestroza & Paez 2001; Martinez & Paez 2000). Monitoring of nesting female turtles occurs during the nesting season from July to December. Fundación Natura (NGO) and college students conducted systematic monitoring surveys from 1991 to 1999. In 2008, beach monitoring was resumed with the help of local researchers (ASPROPACLU), the community council support El Cedro and Fundación Natura, which hosted nightly patrols to tag nesting females and to transfer laid clutches to a hatchery. Humans poached all nests that were left on the beach, therefore all encountered clutches were transferred to a protective enclosure. A substantial number of nesting females were also taken by poachers (Ramirez & Barrientos 2012).

Figure 3. Black sea turtle on El Valle beach, Choco, Colombia.

The first nesting activity of C. mydas on El Valle Beach was reported in 2008 (Fig. 3). There were three emergences from the same female, with time intervals of 21 days: two successful nesting events and a false crawl. The turtle nested on September 19th and October 10th. The false crawl was on October 9th. The curved carapace length notch to tip (CCLn-t) was 89 cm and the turtle was tagged with two Inconel tags. The first nest contained 96 eggs and was transferred to the hatchery for protection. The second nest was poached, and we were unable to determine the total number of eggs.

Traditionally, sea turtles have been an important food source for Colombian Pacific coastal communities including local communities close to El Valle beach. Historically these communities have a culture of turtle meat and egg consumption, for protein requirements and for local commercial purposes. These customs and traditions are important within the communities, and trying to reduce or stop these activities is not an easy task, especially when food alternatives are not available. Hence, intensive conservation efforts and education programs are needed for a successful change of attitude towards threatened resources and their conservation. Gaining the commitment and participation of the local communities in the protection of natural resources, including sea turtles that nest on El Valle Beach, would give us confidence that beneficial relationships between biodiversity and people are possible and successful.

Long-term nesting trends for the black turtle are only available for Michoacan, Mexico (Delgado-Trejo & Alvarado-Diaz 2012). The population is showing an increase over almost a 10-year period, with the highest annual nesting since the early 1980s (Delgado-Trejo & Alvarado-Diaz 2012). Reports of nesting of black turtles further south in the Eastern Pacific have increased since 2008; Peru (Forsberg et al. 2012; Wester et al. 2011), Ecuador (Baquero et al. 2008) and Colombia (present study). However it is unknown if these reports are due to increased monitoring efforts, or if black turtles are colonizing these areas. Long-term monitoring on beaches where nests have been reported is recommended.

Acknowledgments. We thank the community council El Cedro, Fundacion Natura (NGO) and local researchers for their collaboration with the conservation program. Special thanks to Julio and Segundo Rivas who helped to collect data. The authors wish to acknowledge the use of the Maptool program for analysis and graphics in this paper. Maptool is a product of SEATURTLE.ORG. (Information is available at <https://seaturtle.org>). Our thanks to J. Seminoff, S. Kelez and C. Figuerola for critical reading and suggestions to improve the manuscript. The manuscript was improved by the input of two anonymous reviewers.

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